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Chert Hollow Farm sits nestled between rows of tall trees and a nearby stream in central Missouri. Eric and Joanna Reuter have been running the organic farm since 2006. That means they don’t plant genetically modified…

9:00am

marc on the blues

There are more than a few Blues historians who pinpoint Henry Gray as the number one creator of what has become Chicago Blues piano. Most any riff or turnaround that shouts "Chicago!" when you hear it very probably originated with Gray. He has played with true giants and became a true giant.

Movies

In Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, a couple of space creatures ask Allen's character Sandy Bates why he isn't funny anymore. You see, Allen stopped giving dazzling belly laughs a long time ago. He offers chuckles in his last dozen films or so, but his latest, Irrational Man, doesn't even do much of that.

It's a moral and intellectual drama that casts a clear and sometimes amused eye on human self-delusion and hypocrisy. Yet, when I think back on Allen's career, these are the best qualities in his movies, and that moral voice is what's been missing since the '90s.

Donnie Dunagan is a hard-nosed Marine, a highly decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who served for a quarter-century. First drafted in the '50s and subsequently promoted 13 times in 21 years — a Corps record at the time, he recalls — Dunagan found the Marines a perfect fit. That is, so long as he could keep a secret.

A dark reminder of the past Dunagan left behind still lurked unspoken: He was Bambi.

9:01am

Agriculture

Farmers Margot McMillen and Julie Wheeler check on their tomato plants, which they moved into a greenhouse to protect from unwanted pesticides.

Kristofor HustedHarvest Public Media

Chert Hollow Farm sits nestled between rows of tall trees and a nearby stream in central Missouri. Eric and Joanna Reuter have been running the organic farm since 2006. That means they don’t plant genetically modified crops and can only use a few approved kinds of chemicals and fertilizers.

“We’ve traditionally raised about an acre and a half of pretty intensively managed produce, so it’s a very productive acre and a half,” Eric Reuter said. “We’re really into cropping things.”

Their neighbors grow acres of corn and soybeans and they mostly got along. That is until one July evening in 2014. Joanna Reuter was transplanting some broccoli when a sound caught her attention.